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What is up with all the custom characters that Mez in lowbie missions?? There is a reason the Devs have very few Mezzers prior to level 10.
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People are still figuring out how it works. Give it a bit of time, it should iron itself out.
Not that you're wrong, of course. It's just part of the learning curve.
Dec out.
Part of the problem is that we're using player powersets, and are forced to take at least three powers from each set. Almost all the player sets have some sort of baked in mez or debuff in their attacks. War Mace? Disorient. Ice? Slow. Rifle? Defense debuff. Energy melee? Disorient from HELL! Etc.
There's a reason why the critters like Hellions don't get the same powers we do, or they get watered down versions, and this is it. I recommend anything that says "1-54, custom enemies" not be attempted until you have SOs -- and lowbie level designers, stick to stock enemies aside from the occasional VERY carefully designed boss!
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Part of the problem is that we're using player powersets, and are forced to take at least three powers from each set.
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*raises hand*
Some, as I recall, give two. Archery, Mijnion, Easy for instance should give Snap and Aimed shot. (Again, as I recall.)
Best thing to do is *really* look at each of them when the mob's being created.
That said, there are Madness mages (and I believe Life mages) at level 5. They make up for the mez by not having that much else they can do.
[QR]
Here's hoping MA 2.0 allows using standard mob sets & powers with custom costumes. It's hard to add a new low level gang without there being a "Bat and Pistol" power set.
We need some new powersets. I personally suggest:
Thump: Hit someone with a blunt object. Lacking force or skill, this does smashing damage, but no disorient effects
Shank: Stab someone with a smallish blade. Lacking any particular qualities or skill, this does lethal damage, but no secondary effect.
Pow: Punches ineffectually. Smashing damage. Again, no disorient, and not the artsy kicks of MA.
Bang: Carries a firearm less brutal than the Frankengun. The existing mobs are notorious for having rifle, pistol, shotgun, and SMG/AR-toting minion or LT types; why can't we?
Essentially, MA enemies have about two or three times as many attacks as their normal counterparts, and seem to hit harder with them. This makes them a lot tougher than normal mobs.
I agree with all of the prior posters. Custom minions are not appropriate for pre-DO levels, and depending on the mix of mez and debuffs, maybe not until SO levels.
Lowbie missions should be with standard PvE enemies (exception: bosses) until we can make Hellion-ish custom minions.
It'd help if we could simply omit giving NPCs a secondary. For minions especially this would make it easier to come close to the type of minions you see in non-MA content.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
This makes me concerned. My recent arc uses the banished pantheon...because I do love them. It's geared for level 20-29 play, which it would be in Heroes as well.
My Dom can solo it alone, but they do have mezzes, holds and things. Im not useing custom critters though. I wanted something players could relate to and prepare for.
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This makes me concerned. My recent arc uses the banished pantheon...because I do love them. It's geared for level 20-29 play, which it would be in Heroes as well.
My Dom can solo it alone, but they do have mezzes, holds and things. Im not useing custom critters though. I wanted something players could relate to and prepare for.
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If you're using a standard enemy group, then people should know how to deal with it by now. Or to read the freakin' arc description and notice that the group is in there.
@Mindshadow
Custom mobs definitely need to be handled with care. One mission I tried had lts who were hitting for 660 with their claws attacks. Two of these in a mob and my level 44 blaster was essentially two-shotted. First room of the mission (stairs leading down into a square room with mobs on either side) I died three times.
I tested my son's arc with my level 50 Fire/Fire. He had made some custom soldiers who were AR/Devices. Things were set up so the lieutenants had beanbag and smoke grenade. I was running on tenacious, so every mob had at least 1 lt. Every encounter I was being blinded for a minute, so I had to rely on things like burn and hot feet to try to hit enemies I couldn't see (which hardly worked because they preferred range), but I'd have burn detoggled from the beanbag. Had I continued the mission would have taken three hours. I had to exit and edit the lts so they wouldn't have smoke grenade.
(I'd have used more yellows, but being a test mission where insps don't drop...)
Oh - perception on most of these custom mobs seems to be better too, though that might be my imagination.
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
The problem is, using War Mace is about as close as you can get to the standard baseball bat carried by dozens of game-standard minions. It has a stun that I didn't find a large problem, even on the /SR scrapper I made to see how well the system worked for lowbies. But part of that was just a larger pool of hit points.
I tried giving Assault Rifle to my lieutenants. Way too hard.
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"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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I recommend anything that says "1-54, custom enemies" not be attempted until you have SOs
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Yeah, it was frustrating me that I could not set level ranges for the customs I made. I might consider the villain group itself to be 25 or 30+, and the AV I made 35 or 40+, but instead I get 1-54. I put a (()) warning at the start of the description that it was an AV mish, and a hard one.
Part of the problem is also that the rating system is so simple... designers and reviewers can't apply tags like "hard" and "AV" and whatever that people could use to tailor their search results.
@Second Chances
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
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It'd help if we could simply omit giving NPCs a secondary. For minions especially this would make it easier to come close to the type of minions you see in non-MA content.
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Yeah, this would help quite a bit. In place of this, I usually just give low-level Minions Regeneration as a secondary. It gives them very little in the way of added survivability, aside from some minor resistances to Lethal, protection against Disorient, and some bonus HP regen.
im working on a hellion/skull gang war with CoT cross over.. Its ment for lvls 10-14, but 5-14 can play it. Only one mezzer, the main boss that is a main charcter through out the arc. for now he is a CoT madness mage, but that may change in the end to be a custom boss.
though this mission arc will spawn madness mage bosses in the final mission for some crazzy chaos, but anyone that dont know CoT missions at that lvl have madness mages, need to go back to hellion radio missions 
But then agian.. mezzes can make for fun on the right team or hell for a bad one. then again, ive played with high lvl teams that couldnt figure out how to deal with mezzers.
What is up with all the custom characters that Mez in lowbie missions?? There is a reason the Devs have very few Mezzers prior to level 10.
What is really irksome is you go into a mission based on a search of the keyword "Hellion" and you are expecting a mission with Hellions, but nope - there are the custom Mezzers taking me down a notch or two.
Anyway, the point of my post is to try and get people to think before you publish. If you want mezzers in your low level mission, that is certainly your call, but you might want to consider offering some warning in the description or you might get hit with the 1 star rating.
I have seen some really great story lines that were ruined because of misplaced expectations. Providing the expectations in the description will go a long way towards making your story better.
Have a good evening!
@ThrillKiller